(iii)Lessons from the Ghana cocoa platform contribute to the global knowledge on National Commodity Platforms

The Platform is chaired and hosted by COCOBOD with strong participation from farmers and farmers groups, public and private sector institutions and actors.

The Platform will organize a series of plenary meetings for all stakeholders on a regular basis. Platform meetings will be supported by a combination of technical papers and technical committees. These technical committees will be organized around specific areas for intervention defined by members of the Platform. These technical committees are composed of experts and active institutions convened to prepare joint action and investment plans to tackle priority issues.

Discussions at the platform level will lead to a joint documented consensus over the major positive and negative impacts of cocoa production, a review of the best practices to improve environmental and social performance that are better adapted to the reality of Ghana, a set of recommendations for policy reform and joint action planning by stakeholders.

The platform will include a strong feedback loop where progress is frequently reported and activities and results will be closely monitored and measured to ensure that enhanced performance of the commodity value chain is achieved and that lessons are incorporated into and guide future interventions.

In addition to the focus on the national level, a global knowledge and coordination function will also be implemented, in order to enable the transfer of effective approaches and lessons learned across countries and across commodities to Ghana, and to capture and disseminate the lessons and successes from Ghana at the global level.

The Barriers

A baseline analysis reveals common barriers that need to be addressed to improve sustainability in the sector. These broadly include:

Policy level

o Insufficient integration of all policies and instruments impacting the cocoa sectoro Limited policies and incentives to encourage farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices o Unfavorable land tenure systems and lack of harmonization among themo Limited financial mechanisms to boost farmer’s investmento Unfavorable international-level policy and terms of trade in the cocoa sector

Institutional level

o Weak institutions, especially in the financial sector and at local and district levelso Limited institutional coordination

Stakeholder level

o Insufficient sustained dialogue among all stakeholders o Lack of an agreed common vision by all stakeholders for the development of the sectoro Limited public participation at all levels of the decision making process in the cocoa sector o Limited coordination among existing sustainable initiatives in the sectoro Lack of an inclusive, multi-stakeholder forum to bridge information gaps in the sector

Overcoming these complex barriers requires a holistic approach by all key players in the sector. This requires enhanced institutional and stakeholders’ coordination and focused dialogue among all players, in order to jointly identify major sustainability issues, agree on a common strategy to tackle these issues, implement actions to achieve common goals, and effectively monitor the progress achieved.